


Changeling

by atwas



Category: Call of Cthulhu: Path of Perdition (Web Series), Internet Remix, Rolling with Remix: Masks of Nyarlathotep (Web Series)
Genre: Brief Descriptions of Injuries and Death, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Path of Perdition, time skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27717163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atwas/pseuds/atwas
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	Changeling

***

It wells up from deep within him, a wrenching, aching pain that springs forth from underneath his ribs and clenches-- it clenches so hard it feels as though his bones will splinter. It feels as though his chest will collapse, will cave in on itself under the tremendous weight of the pressure. It hurts, it tears, it rends. His shaking hands clutch at his own neck, nails biting into soft flesh (and rough flesh) as though the pain that is physical will be enough to drown out the pain that is not.

It never is.

It comes in waves. It always has. Stinging thoughts, here and there. Dark shadows that cloud clear eyes and then leave them, gazing blankly into the spaces between thoughts, the spaces between reality. The emptiness where shadows curl and insinuate themselves-- twisting vicious tendrils into everything that was once good, and safe and right and kind and warm and loving. Then it takes hold. The pain. What feels like his entrails twisting themselves into knots-- keeping the taste of bile and blood fresh on his tongue to serve as reminders _(never forget the taste of mud never forget the choking feeling of the poison never forget the taste of my own charred flesh)_ \-- aching fire-bright reminders of _what_ exactly it was that came back.

***

 _I am not your son._ He tries to tell them, choking back the anguish that never left his throat. _I am not your brother._ He sobs, the knife-sharp smell of gunpowder burning in his nose, in his gut. _I am not._

_I am not._

_I am not._

_I am not._

(They never understood of course. He fools them too well-- coming home, wearing someone else's skin, trying to fit back into someone else's life. They refuse to understand.)

***

 _This is what I am._ He thinks, tracing his new face in mirrors, in windows, in glass. _Maybe this is always who I've been._ He thinks, tracing his face with hesitant fingers. Following the lines of ruined flesh, the deep shadows and curves of skin stretched to fit-- as though it never fit to begin with. Even touching this stranger's face is foreign. There is no sensation underneath his fingertips. It is like he is being touched by a stranger _(I will never be touched again)_ or like he is a stranger to himself _(I will never be known again)_.

 _Help me._ But they don't know how. _Please, help me._ But she doesn't know how. _Please._ But there is no-one to understand.

 _Who am I?_ He asks, forgetting day by day what he once was. Who he once was is nothing but a blurry face in old photographs. _What did I sound like?_ He asks, his voice painful even within his own mind. _Who do you see?_ He asks, burning the hurt of her eyes into his memories until they haunt him at night like cold embers-- green pin-pricks aflame with pain and tears.

A year should have been enough, but it wasn't. This is what he was scared of. This is why he stayed away, knowing deep within his heart that this would happen. Would it have been worse to allow his "Metamorphosis" to happen here? Did it matter? He was still different, so much different than before. Where he was once half of a pair, there was nothing but an emptiness, where he had been torn away-- ripped from what should have been familiar, what should have been comfort.

He doesn't see comfort in her eyes, no matter how much she tries to provide it.

There is only pity. Pity that spreads across a face too similar to his own. Pity that sparks in eyes too similar to his own. Pity that cracks in a voice too similar to his own.

He only manages a few months before he flees into the night-- head buzzing with half-remembered stories of the Aos Sí, of faeries from across the sea.

Maybe that's what he was. The thoughts spilled bitter from his tongue. Maybe he was a changeling child ferried across the Atlantic-- only now understanding the curse of his flesh, the curse of the unnatural that coiled within him like a fell serpent and poisoned everything he touched.

***

He flees. It eases the pain.

***

He's found he cannot stay in the same place for very long. The longing for movement has settled into the marrow of his bones-- has become a comfort and a balm that he cannot replace with anything else, no matter how hard he tries. He travels, he finds solace in strangers who see him as just another stranger _(nothing more than strangers)_. He finds a tenuous peace in the fleeting conversations he has in passing _(nothing more than fleeting)_.

It is easier to exist in a place as he is, than it is to stay behind-- stay behind in a place who only knew him as he was.

Every few months he leaves. He finds new work. He joins another expedition. He keeps moving, and jokes about wanderlust. Every once in a while he will send a wire. He will place a call.

He never leaves a forwarding address. Some animal instinct within him screams in anguish at the thought of being found.

***

He feels the pain again in a Peruvian bar. In between the sweet lime taste on his tongue and the burn _(don't think about it)_ of alcohol in his throat, he smiles. He laughs. He is seen.

He is terrified.

(He will never admit this, but that was the moment in Peru that terrified him the most.

The corpses. The gold. Larkin. Professor Sanchez. The dented, ancient armour of the Caraciri. The maggots, the maggots, the maggots and the mask _(and the maggots)_ \--

The fear and clarity of that moment was what lived within him. It slipped into him like cold steel between his ribs, and has lived there ever since. He can still taste the Pisco Sour on his tongue, and later on in a dining car on the California Limited _(perhaps in a different lifetime entirely)_ he will begin to associate sweet limes with disaster).

***

He falls into the role that was given to him. It is easy. It is familiar. It is what was created, so long ago, in the mud and rain. It is what he accepted, so long ago, with blood under his fingernails and blood smeared on his face. _It was what I accepted when I led them--_

_I led them._

_I led them up._

_I led them up and over._

_I led them up and over, and now poppies grow._

_Poppies._

_Grow._

He sees a body on a marble slab, and it is cold-- skin ivory and bruised. Destroyed. It stares-- _she_ stares with one accusing eye, the other nothing more than an entry wound. He recognizes his handiwork from anywhere. He recognizes his own neat stitches in living flesh, and his own precision in the shattered dead meat and bone.

He doesn't remember, but he knows. He feels the trigger under his finger, and the metal ball of the bolt-action in his palm. He feels the recoil, the retort, the crack.

It is small on the marble slab. _She_ is cold on the marble slab, her dark hair a halo. A halo of pain. A halo that would match the splatter of blood and brain and bone and she looks just like-- 

He reads the similarities in his hands, in the lines of his palms, in the creases of his knuckles; and the ache snakes its way around his spine to sink its fangs into the hollow of his neck and he is a liar a liar a liar a liar

_(they trusted me)_

a liar

_(why?)_

liar

_(can't they see?)_

butcher

_(can't they see I'm not human?)_

***

He flees across the Atlantic, the ache an albatross around his neck. He flees across the sea.

Back to where he belongs.

***

In Berlin, he falls into place. He coalesces amongst people who should hate him, amongst people he can barely understand. Here, his pulse stills. Here, in this tiny apartment, he finds silence. Not peace. Silence.

He lives. A day at a time. He wakes in the night still, sometimes, long enough to put bitter morphine under his tongue and fall once more into dreamless sleep.

There is no peace, but there is silence.

The days fade into weeks, fade into months, and he fades into being just another face in a crowd of faces. All scarred in some way. All hurt in some way. A fey city, full of fey folk.

Every once in a while, he still finds himself flinching from a kind glance _(will I ever be known again?)_ or a kind touch _(will I ever be touched again?)_

He puts a business card on his dresser, and he sends a letter across the Atlantic-- this time with a forwarding address.

The ache grows dull. It curls on his chest when he sleeps like a cat, a constant bed-fellow, a comforting presence. It purrs him to sleep at night, and the twinge in his chest is a comfort, in a way. It would be stranger now, to live without it. Without it, what would be left to fill the emptiness in his chest? What would be left to nestle in the nest of his ribs and organs? What would be left to caress him, with cruel and loving claws? What would be left to spike his heart with ice?

He dances with the solitude of his life, and does his best to convince himself that he needs nothing and no-one.

_I can stay a stranger to myself._

_I never was that person who was left behind._

_I have always been a changeling. A curiosity from far away, across the sea._

_Perhaps now, as myself-- as my own stranger-- I can build a home of my own._

_Perhaps now, as myself-- I can understand._

_Myself; finally._


End file.
